Conventional online systems provide metadata services to enable rich media player experiences and media management capabilities. For example, a user may access a compact disc (CD) with a media player (e.g., Windows Media Player) and the media player may subsequently display the album name, the artist name, track information for the accessed CD, and other information related to the CD. Such a conventional system functions because when the CD is accessed by the media player, a Table of Contents (TOC) identifier, or TOC, is extracted from the CD and forwarded to an online service. The online service then utilizes the TOC as the key to accessing a reference database from which related metadata is retrieved. This metadata is then transmitted back to the user for many purposes, such as informational display and media management.
Online TOC identifier matching services receive millions of requests for CD metadata initiated by CD first inserts daily. Unfortunately, less than half of these are served with metadata because no matching TOC identifier is stored in the matching service database. For a given “album”, there may be multiple TOC identifiers from multiple CDs. TOC identifiers do not match for a variety of reasons, including (i) multiple CD pressings and releases, each having slightly different timing offsets for the CD tracks, (ii) duplicate copies of CDs whereby software and hardware differences in duplication equipment produce slightly different TOCs; (iii) rare CDs (e.g., international CDs or independent label CDs) for which no TOC identifier data provider or other data provider (e.g., user feedback) is available, (iv) CDs purchased and burned from an online store (e.g., Napster), among others. The TOC identifiers stored on CDs are a precise measurement of the offsets, or starting points, of each track on a CD. Due to slight variations in hardware and software mastering and duplication equipment, these TOC identifiers can very slightly from one another. Thus, to be able to identify a CD, the online service noted above must first have a copy of each TOC identifier in a reference database. However, there is no definitive source to obtain this information. Thus, many TOC identifiers sent from users to online services cannot be matched to a particular album, inhibiting conventional systems from providing related metadata to many users. Moreover, much of this conventional matching is performed on an exact or semi-exact basis, increasing the likelihood of failed matches due to small variations between TOC identifiers. A way to successfully match TOC identifiers without requiring a perfect match to another TOC identifier would be useful.